Great Young Hunters (Profile)

Local Indie rockers take their time to concoct a quality debut album

Emptying change jars, digging through
couch cushions, turning pockets inside out, shining a flashlight under
the fridge hoping to retrieve a lost quarter from yesteryear — some
bands will do anything to get into the recording studio. Rounding up
some money to lay down a few tracks is a rite of passage nowadays. For
Northern Kentucky’s Great Young Hunters, this wasn’t just a rite of
passage; it was pretty much a monthly occurrence.

But when you’re heading into the studio
to record your debut LP while simultaneously trying to establish
yourself within an over-saturated local scene, battling the kitchen’s
dust bunnies is the least of your worries.

Cincinnati has a vast and flourishing
Indie scene. However, in an omnipresent scene, all the heartfelt lyrics
and well-written chord progressions in the world won’t get you very
far. It requires bands to be more daring with their music, both
lyrically and sonically. It requires experimentation, expansion and
determination. It requires a work ethic to which GYH’s singer/guitarist
Nick Hill, guitarist David Coombs, drummer Benjamin Sims and bassist
Brandon Lomax subscribe.

“We seem to play well under pressure,” Sims says. “It’s fun.”

The quartet has been playing as a band since last fall, but the members have been playing together since childhood.

“Brandon and I grew up next door to each other, took up instruments basically at the same time,” Hill says.

Sims was next to join the group, with
Coombs joining most recently. He’s still considered the new guy, being
the butt of most of the jokes during our interview.

These longstanding friendships do more
than just craft a fun band environment; it has helped Great Young
Hunters become one very tight and technical act in a very short period
of time.

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The band’s sound is a mishmash of Noise, Indie Rock and Pop.
Often, their songs veer off from one genre to another, crashing
together sounds that, by all rights, simply shouldn’t work together.
Hill’s love of wailing guitar distortion, effects and emotive vocals
combined with Sims’ razor-sharp drumming technique, Lomax’s funky bass
lines and Coombs’ growing versatility have helped Great Young Hunters
craft a sound that, while always cohesive, keeps listeners unsure of
what to expect next.

“That’s something we do very well when we write songs. Not every one sounds like the last one,” Lomax says.

With the completion of recording of the band’s debut, Civil Twilight,
they are ready to unleash their unique brand of Indie Rock onto the
world. But the band wanted to make sure the album wasn’t just some
thrown together hunk of plastic. Recording the album frequently drained
the band members financially, forcing them to constantly scrape
together any cash they could to pay for the recording process. With
such dedication to the final product, no shortcuts were taken.

“It’s not just, ‘Oh, this is what we can
afford to make right now’ — we destroyed ourselves,” Hill says. “(We)
bent over backwards to make this happen.”

When you hear the album, the dedication
plays in stereo. Each of the album’s 10 tracks are layered and complex,
but also catchy and distinct.

Providing some insight, Sims says,
“There are 32 tracks at the end of the last song. We completely filled
Mike’s (Mike Montgomery, the producer of the album) board.”

The tracks “On Orange” and “Rivers in
the Country Rise Up! Rise Up!” are tailor-made for college radio.
“Macondo” is a haunting jaunt through Hill’s psyche, complete with pipe
organ synths. The rest of the album is just as unpredictable. Each song
has its own position and pace, with deliberate tempo shifts. The songs
are unique but definitely spawned from the same band. It’s a hard line
to walk, but Great Young Hunters put enough blood, sweat, tears, money
and time into the process to fall off the razor’s edge.

While the band’s efforts were not in vain (Civil Twilight
is quite an accomplishment), all signs are pointing to bigger and
better things. Each member says the recording process had helped them
grow as musicians. And if Civil Twilight is to be considered the starting point, then Great Young Hunters should definitely be a band worth tracking down.

GREAT YOUNG HUNTERS
(www.greatyounghunters.com) celebrate the release of Civil Twilight at
the Southgate House Friday with guests Sweet Ray Laurel and All
Dinosaurs. Buy tickets, check out performance times and get venue details here.